>I have taken from the comments that it was only the case, that she rehashed ideas from other books, and I wanted to point out, that while this is a big deal for academic papers, it is not for books and basically expected.
In addition to near verbatim quotes, she is also accused of copying stories beat for beat. That's much different than rehashing a few ideas from other works. It is not expected and it is very much considered plagiarism by fiction writers.
As for the quotes she copied. That is likely both a copyright violation and plagiarism.
Plagiarism isn't just about ideas but about expressions of those ideas in the form of words.
Webster's definition:
"to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source"
"to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source"
Oxford learner's dictionary:
"to copy another person’s ideas, words or work and pretend that they are your own"
Copying verbatim or nearly verbatim lines from a work of fiction and passing them off as your own is both plagiarism and copyright violation.
So I won't defend what was done here, there doesn't seem much to argue.
> copying stories beat for beat. That's much different than rehashing a few ideas from other works. It is not expected and it is very much considered plagiarism by fiction writers.
Some operas are a greek play. There rehashes of the Faust, the Beggars Opera is a copy of a play from Shakespeare, there are modern versions of Pride and Prejustice, there are tons of stories that are a copy of the Westside Story, which is itself a copy of Romeo and Julia, which I thinks comes from an even older story. This often don't come with any attribution at all, although the listener is sometimes expected to know that the original exists. They change the settings, but the plot is basically the same. Do you consider all of that to be plagiarism? These would be all a reason to call it plagiarism when considering a paper, but for books nobody bats an eye. This is because authors don't sell abstract ideas or a plot, they sell concrete stories.
First, the stories you mentioned are very famous. The audience watching Oh Brother Where Art Thou is aware it’s an adaptation of the Odyssey. Therefore it’s not someone attempting to pass off work as their own.
The stories this authors copied were either unpublished manuscripts she got access to in writers groups or very obscure works that it’s unlikely her readers had read.
Second, the examples you gave were extremely transformative. Just look at the differences between Westside Story and Romeo and Juliette. It’s a musical for goodness sake. It subverts expectations by letting Maria live through it.
The writings at issue are short stories, so there’s less room for transformation in the first place. And there was clearly not even a strong attempt at transformation. The author even kept some of the same character names.
There was no attempt to subvert expectations largely because the audience had expectations, since they weren’t aware of the originals.
>change settings
She didn’t even do that.
> for books nobody bats an eye
If a popular book were revealed to be a beat for beat remake of an obscure novel with the same setting, similar dialogue, some of the same character names, and few significant transformative elements, you can bet your life there would be a scandal.
Like I wrote, I wanted to point a difference in attitude between academic and entertaining writing. I think I don't disagree with you in this specific case (now). You seem to have looked into the actual case, while I didn't.
In addition to near verbatim quotes, she is also accused of copying stories beat for beat. That's much different than rehashing a few ideas from other works. It is not expected and it is very much considered plagiarism by fiction writers.
As for the quotes she copied. That is likely both a copyright violation and plagiarism.
Plagiarism isn't just about ideas but about expressions of those ideas in the form of words.
Webster's definition:
"to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source"
"to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source"
Oxford learner's dictionary:
"to copy another person’s ideas, words or work and pretend that they are your own"
Copying verbatim or nearly verbatim lines from a work of fiction and passing them off as your own is both plagiarism and copyright violation.